Thanks to the Renaissance and the subsequent evolution of Modern Science, our current
understanding of the world we live in is much broader and deeper than in Medieval
and Classical times. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the progress of Science was
accelerated to a vertigo-inducing rate of novelty. During that era, at least three
significant paradigm adjustments occurred, and gave birth to new branches of scientific
investigation. Darwin's Theory of Evolution gave all future sciences a rational foundation
for explaining the natural, but mysterious processes of change over deep time. Then
Freud's radical rethinking of how the human mind works, opened a long-closed door
to understanding the mysterious subconscious operations behind our conscious thoughts
and feelings. Next, Einstein's deeper penetration into the quirky quantum nature
behind normal Newtonian Physics resulted in a paradoxical new way of looking at the
Cosmos and the Microcosm. We now know that the world is constantly evolving, that
the mind is mostly subconscious, and that the universe is much bigger and smaller
and stranger than anyone ever imagined.

This new thesis builds on all of those older concepts, but also attempts to incorporate
some of the more recent discoveries about the structure of Reality. At the essential
core of each of these new branches of Science we find information. Claude Shannon's
pragmatic Theory of Informationprobably facilitated the emergence of what we now
call the Information Age. Other cutting-edge theories are less connected with personal
names, but they are also pushing the boundaries of our ability to understand and
control the complexities of Nature. Some of those new departures are Complexity Theory,
Chaos Theory, Systems Theory, Cybernetic Theory, Memetic Theory, and Quantum Mechanics.
Based on my superficial understanding of these abstruse fields, I have concluded
that the single, fundamental substance of the universe is not atoms, or quarks, or
energy, but Information. That “arrogant” leap of logic may be an unsubstantiated
speculation, but I'm putting it out there for discussion, to see if it has any merit.
The Enformationism Thesis is set forth, as much as possible in layman’s language,
in the following pages and links. Where technical terms, or coinages, or special
meanings are used, they are defined in the Terminology section, and highlighted where
first encountered.

E n d o f B a c k g r o u n d

SPOOKY STUFFBecause information is not a thing of this world. It is immaterial ---after all, anything you can give away and still have must be something magical and ineffable, right? . . . the equating of ideas with information. . . "mental states are invisible and weightless . . . The content of a belief lives in a different realm from the facts of the world."—- Robert Aunger The Electric Meme

REAL MEANING"Instead I imagine meaning and physical reality as the same thing. . . . what consciousness is made of is understood to be the same as what physical reality is made of. . . . The physical world . . . it is meaning".—-- Gevn GiorbranEverything Forever

INFORMATION SCIENCES

What I refer to as "21st century sciences" are those that go beyond strict empirical
materialism to deal with conceptual relationships between material things. I also
call them the "Information Sciences" : Information Theory, Systems Theory, Chaos
and Complexity Theory, Cybernetics, Memetics, and so forth. All of those pragmatic
sciences are forced to deal with paradoxical, abstract concepts, relationships, and
processes that go beyond the self-imposed boundaries of 19th century Materialism.
[The difference is similar to Euclidean vs Non-linear Geometry vs multi-dimensional
Topology] That's why I must remind science purists that it was intrepid Science which
inadvertently strayed into the formerly forbidden domain of Metaphysics and Philosophy.